Suicide is, of course, a serious problem more generally. In 2017, it was the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S., claiming the lives of over 47,000 people. Today, it takes twice as many American lives as homicide.

It also can complicate the pursuit of justice. When someone awaiting trial ends their life, crime victims are deprived of the opportunity to have the perpetrator brought to justice. And, when someone who has already been tried and convicted commits suicide, that act impedes the public's legitimate interest in seeing a punishment fully carried out.

In 2015, the death of Sandra Bland, a young African-American woman who hanged herself in a Texas jail, also made national headlines.

Bland had been stopped for failing to signal a lane change and was arrested and jailed for an alleged assault on a public officer.

The circumstances surrounding her death, like those surrounding Epstein's death, were mysterious. That mystery was not resolved when Bland's family filed a wrongful death suit and eventually accepted a monetary settlement of US$1.9 million.

Because families either settle or generally don't prevail if their case goes to trial, there is little pressure from the courts to address suicides among the incarcerated. And, except in cases where there is notoriety, there is also little public concern about such events.

But data from 2014 shows the magnitude of the suicide problem. In that year, 372 inmates killed themselves in local jails, resulting in a suicide rate of 50 deaths per 100,000 inmates.

A study done by the nonprofit National Center on Institutions and Alternatives found that such suicides are "evenly distributed from the first few days of confinement to over several months of confinement, many suicides occurred during waking hours, most inmates were not under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol at the time of death, and many suicides occurred in close proximity to a court hearing."

The problem in that case seems to have been a lack of supervision or surveillance, but Epstein was also at risk of suicide because his cellmate had been transferred out of their shared unit in violation of the jail's procedure. A 2007 report from the Central New York Psychiatric Center notes, "Almost all suicides in state prisons occur in single cells as opposed to in dormitories or double-bunked cells. Suicide is a very private act, and whether it occurs in a hospital, in the free community, or in prison, it almost always occurs when the person is alone."

As U.S. prisons increasingly turn to isolation as a principle of punishment, or to single-cell disciplinary housing, it should not be surprising that the incidence of suicide would rise.

In my view, the U.S. owes it to those whom it incarcerates to do something about the problem of suicide.

The writer Austin Sarat is Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College.